Wednesday, April 22, 2009

For the past couple months, a story has been quietly raging through the web about an infamous adoption case in Scotland. In this case, as reported by the UK's Daily Mail, two children ages 4 and 5 were being raised by their grandparents, because their mother was addicted to heroin. Social workers declared the grandparents to be unfit, due to age and health, to care for the children. Subsequently, the children were placed for adoption in the home of a gay male couple. The grandparents are aged 46 and 59; one suffers from diabetes and the other suffers from angina.

I am skeptical of the generalized case that the media and bloggers are presenting here. Simply put, I doubt that the Daily Mail is giving us, or even has access to, all the facts in this case. I'm not an expert in UK family law, but I doubt that being 46 and 59 and suffering from the above conditions, in and of themselves, are sufficient to render the removal of children from the home of biological relatives. Unfortunately, with respect to stories about children, especially children in sad circumstances, reason takes a backseat to emotion and pathos. In this case, anti-gays have jumped on this case, have perpetuated it with their usual paranoia and lack of any skepticism, and are using it as further proof that the Gay Agenda and Political Correctness Have Gone Too Far (tm).

For instance, in his headline regarding this case, one anti-gay blogger recently ejaculated "We Can't Have Children!! So well [sic] Just Take Yours!! {By Force of Law}" as though, due to their incapacity to procreate with their partners, gay men are masterminding a Raising Arizona-like plot to steal the children of heterosexuals. In his bizarre and marginally-literate piece of writing, this "marriage defender" opines that, for gay couples, "Local adoption is even more difficult and arduous (do [sic] too [sic] abortion) young healthy children are an increased rarity…who’s [sic] mothers often want the children to go to good homes with a Mother & Father" (ellipses in original). If I can attempt a translation here, I think this fellow is trying to say that abortion has depleted the stock of adoptable children and so it has become quite difficult for gay couples to adopt healthy kids. He continues that this case shows how the gays have strong-armed adoption agencies into implementing a "pro-gay, anti-Christian bias."

But, is this case really as simplistic as the media and breathless bloggers present? Wouldn't the real travesty be, assuming we know all the relevant facts here, not that the children were placed with a gay couple, but rather that they were removed from the only home they knew for somewhat wishy-washy reasons? Most importantly, do we really know all of the facts in this particular adoption case? No, we don't. Is it likely that more ingredients are at work here? Yes. After all, "Social services are legally unable to comment on the details of the case" [emphasis added].

The entirety of facts in this case, and especially more specifics as to why the grandparents were deemed unfit, are not available. There are a number of deeper possible explanations, going beyond the grandparents' age and health status, as to why these children were removed from their grandparents' home. It's likely much more complicated than anyone knows and does not fit neatly into an OMG The Gay Agenda Is Ruining Everything box. For instance, how severe are the grandparents' medical issues? Is the biological mother, and her drug habit, also residing with the grandparents? Do the grandparents have mental health issues? Do they have prior criminal offenses that would preclude them from legal adoption? Did social workers, for whatever reason, determine that the grandparents would not be able to meet the emotional, identity, health and development needs of the children? We simply don't know, and the social workers involved are not able to divulge this sort of information. Any competent attorney or journalist, knowing (a) that cases exist in shades of gray rather than black and white and (b) that details of these sorts of cases often remain confidential, would be hesitant to look at this case and make huge sweeping generalizations about any alleged trend in adoption law.

Thus, I see three tragedies in this case. The first is that the biological parents of these children have failed them. Two, the public in general, and anti-gay bloggers and writers in particular, are severely lacking a healthy dose of skepticism. The bulk of the writing surrounding this case indicates that people truly think they know all of the facts here when they do clearly do not. These assumptions have led to paranoia, anti-gay hysterics, and the expected vilification of LGBT people.

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